Alan Barrett

My friend Alan Barrett died from cancer this week.  I’ve only known him a couple years – but I knew he was mad cool when he ordered a gin and tonic at the Christmas party…that’s my drink! A fellow east coaster and awesome at bar music trivia, he carried the classic rock/punk questions like a champ!

I can’t imagine telling my daughter I’m not going to be around to see her grow up, yet Alan had two daughters he thought the world of.  I didn’t get to say goodbye.  He was my friend and I wanted him to win this thing, we had more bocce ball to play, Xbox, and bar trivia to conquer. I wanted him to win.

I’m no lecturer. You all are aware of the American Cancer Society and you know you can help. You also know you need to get THOSE check-ups – ladies and gents. Get ‘em early.

Do it.

Fresh AIR

At first glance, I pegged Adobe’s AIR product as gimmicky and left it at that. Recently a client asked for a tool that could convert some data from CSV format to a XML format. Easy enough.

“What Platform” I asked assuming Windows.

“Well – some of my clients have Macs” my client replied. Sounds like a Job for Flash!

Only the app needed to run off the various clients desktops and once I saw the size of some of these files…better they be processed over the clients several machines than one server. I took a second look at Adobe AIR – and I am digging it! Basically it’s a Flash/Flex app right on your desktop, so I’m able to quickly develop a sharp-looking app in Flex, get local file handling for FREE and my client is ecstatic that his users, no matter the machine, can go to one place to install the tool.

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